“I know regionalism for some people is upsetting, but Copley is no good if the city of Akron and city of Fairlawn fails or the city of Barberton, because it’s like a cancer. It spreads the failure.”

COPLEY TOWNSHIP TRUSTEE

HELEN HUMPHRYS

Humphrys is one of many local government leaders in Ohio who are determined to offset the impact of cuts in state funds and elimination of the estate tax by working with other governments to share services.

As a result of teamwork by Copley Township, Barberton and Norton to create a regional EMS dispatch center, the township saved $50,000 just in the year when the program underwent a trial run — without laying off any employees — township Fire Chief Mike Benson told The Plain Dealer.

Complain all you want — as we have — about reductions in the state’s Local Government fund, but it’s also true that the state is rewarding collaborative efforts among local governments with grants and loans that have amounted to $5.3 million in Northeast Ohio since 2012, the newspaper has calculated.

The worst effects of the recent recession are behind the region.

But according to projections by the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium, governments in Stark and about a dozen other Northeast Ohio counties will face “significant financial risk” within 25 years if their development strategies, including building roads and other infrastructure, aren’t brought in line with population and other negative trends.

That said, we’re pleased to see that the latest proposal out of the Legislature for raising the severance tax on oil and gas drillers includes distribution of 15 percent of this revenue to local governments, up from 10 percent in earlier legislation.

Spent wisely, this money can be especially useful in counties where the drilling boom is strongest — for better and for worse — and where local governments are collaborating to deal with it. Washington Township and the village of Carrollton in Carroll County, for instance, are working to create a Joint Economic Development District that would allow both governments to benefit from construction of a 700-megawatt electric plant in the township.

Local governments have learned a hard lesson about state government in recent years: Columbus giveth, and Columbus taketh away. The pressure for elected officials to stop protecting their turf and instead find common ground with leaders of other communities will only grow as resources become more precious.